One of the things I like most about living around here is that so little crime is committed; it can all go in the paper. I’ve been here almost 10 years and until last week have not been a crime victim. Then some yahoo decided he didn’t like the color of my politics and took it upon himself to remove a perfectly legal political poster from my yard.

First the miscreant toyed with me for days. Every morning when I stumbled out to get the paper, the sign was face down in the yard so no one could read it. I would right it and go back inside. This game continued for days until one morning, the sign was just gone. How rude. I called the cops to report the theft, thinking I could just do this over the phone, since it truly is a petty crime, but no, they sent an officer to my home for a full report. Humming in my brain was Arlo Guthrie’s Alice’s Restaurant with officer Obie and the 8 x 10 glossy photos of the crime scene, but I digress.

In fairly short order, Deputy Duh arrived. I had to describe the sign, indicating language and colors, say when I last saw it and when I first noticed it missing. He demanded to know my age and weight, which I found quite strange—those two pieces of information being totally irrelevant. I had to verify my address although he had managed to find it from the number on the outside and show my driver license, even though I was the victim here. Maybe if my driver license had not had my current address on it, I would have been cited. Those clever officers are always looking for a way to make a buck for the county.

Finally all the information had been gleaned…the size of the sign, where it had been in my yard, etc. Did I have any suspects? Well, no, I didn’t, but I knew the criminal could read and probably did not like my candidate, but other than that I was clueless about the perp. Somehow or another in the course of my impromptu rant about political freedom, I asked Deputy Duh if he was registered to vote. I happened to have a number of voter registration forms in my possession because I intend to walk my block signing up anybody wanting to vote. Deputy Duh allowed as how he was not registered and he didn’t want to talk politics. Yikes! Even Barney Fife was a registered voter.

I told him being registered to vote was not a discussion about politics, it was a discussion about his duty as a citizen. Said duties don’t come up all that often. I was appalled to learn an employee of the county was not registered. After all, on Aug. 31 he had the opportunity to vote to retain his current boss, Charlie Morris, or try out somebody new. Lots of us would be delighted to be able to cast a vote determining our boss. As a registered voter with no party affiliation, I have to wait until November to cast my vote for sheriff, but Deputy uh clearly just doesn’t care. It is my firm belief that every person should be registered to vote, particularly if you are on the public payroll.

Deputy Duh either probably doesn’t know a new law went into effect giving police departments the flexibility to deny overtime to virtually every officer earning between $23,660 and $100.000. This little bonus for businesses and municipalities was established by the Department of Labor. It was squashed twice in the Senate, and dodged completely by the House of Representatives. He hasn’t a clue that voting might give him a new representative in Congress and in Florida, Senator Bob Graham is retiring and we have opportunities to put people in office who might actually listen to us.

After all, if you don’t vote, you may not complain. Voter registration continues through Oct. 3, so just do it!

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